Archive for December, 2010

New Years Prediction (II): The U.S. Economy in 2011

Robert Reich::

What will happen to the US economy in 2011? If you’re referring to profits of big corporations and Wall Street, next year is likely to be a good one. But if you’re referring to average American workers, far from good.

The two American economies — the Big Money economy and the Average Working Family economy — will continue to diverge. Corporate profits will continue to rise, as will the stock market. But typical wages will go nowhere, joblessness will remain high, the ranks of the long-term unemployed will continue to rise, the housing recovery will remain stalled, and consumer confidence will sag.

The big disconnect between corporate profits and jobs is likely to continue because America’s big businesses are depending less and less on U.S. sales and U.S. workers. Their big profits are coming from two sources: (1) growing sales in China, India, and other fast-growing countries, and (2) slimmed-down US payrolls.

via Robert Reich (New Years Prediction (II): The U.S. Economy in 2011).

Tax Breaks For Outsourcing? Robert Reich w/ Cenk

Cenk Uygur (host of The Young Turks) filling in for Ed Schultz on MSNBC speaks with economist and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Is Being Republican a Brain Defect?

recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

Republican policy always seems to depend on numerous thinking errors, misinformed attitudes that result in antisocial behavior. One common one is the concrete thinking error, the belief all things occur in black or white, that there is no middle ground for compromise. In my volunteer work, I help prisoners and former prisoners learn to recognize and avoid a couple dozen of these thinking errors. People often develop thinking errors as a response to fear. The Republican leadership recognizes this and bombards their base with lies specifically designed to invoke fear. Within the human brain is a structure called the amygdala that triggers the fight or flight reaction as a response to fear by dumping a hormone cocktail into the bloodstream, one of whose effects is interference with rational thought. I have often wondered why Republicans, especially the InsaniTEA wing of the party, seem so vulnerable to the obvious propaganda from the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Palin, and science just may have an answer.

Political opinions are considered choices, and in Western democracies the right to choose one’s opinions — freedom of conscience — is considered sacrosanct.

But recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

via Is Being Republican a Brain Defect? » Politics Plus.

Poll: Most Americans Support Health Law Or Want To Make It More Progressive

One of the major rallying cries of the Republican Party and the wider conservative movement has been to repeal the recently passed health care law. To justify this demand, these conservatives claim that Americans want the law to be repealed and that they think it goes too far in expanding the government and would prefer a free market approach to health care (which has no history of working anywhere at anytime).

Last week, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe made this claim in on op-ed published on FoxNews.com. He said that repealing the health care law “is achievable because the American people clearly want and expect repeal.” Earlier this week, CNN/Opinion Research released a new poll that, at first glance, seemed to support Kibbe’s thesis. The poll found that Americans opposed the new law 50 to 43 percent (with 7 percent undecided). Yet as U.S. News & World Report’s Robert Schlesinger finds, the details of the poll results show that most Americans either support the law or oppose it because it is “not liberal enough“:

Do you oppose that legislation because you think its approach toward health care is too liberal, or because you think it is not liberal enough?”

Favor 43%

Oppose, too liberal 37%

via ThinkProgress » Poll: Most Americans Support Health Law Or Want To Make It More Progressive.

The Great Deficit Con

DEAN BAKER:

Deficit Panic, TARP Financial Collapse and Other End-of-the-World Stories

Hollywood used to be the place where creative people went to cook up outlandish horror plots. But Hollywood has been displaced. Now people go to Washington to spin their wild tales of looming disaster.

The national agenda has been dominated by such tales over the last two years. Most recently we have had the story of the bond market vigilantes doing to the United States what they have already done to Greece, Ireland and Portugal. This story requires suspending disbelief, but people who report on economic and political issues for major news outlets are good at ignoring reality.

The plot is that at some date in the not-distant future, if we don’t mend our free-spending ways, no one will buy US government bonds. The United States will be forced to stand before the international community as a helpless beggar and agree to whatever humiliating terms bad guys from China to Saudi Arabia and even France choose to impose.

The plot departs from reality in several ways. The large deficits at present are due to the downturn, not profligate spending. Furthermore, there has been very little growth in government spending as a share of GDP for decades (apart from counter-cyclical spending in the downturn), undermining this key part of the story.

But the real problem stems from the logic of the impending crisis. Suppose that investors in the United States and elsewhere refuse to buy government debt. (Investors keep undermining the plot line by buying massive amounts of US debt at very low interest rates.) In this case, we could have the Fed buy our debt. Unlike Greece, Ireland and Portugal, we have our own currency.

via 11.1.baker.

The “Family” – Who Really Is Behind This Secret Organization?

What if someone were to tell you that your Congressman routinely bandies around phrases such as “Jesus plus nothing,” used to mean the complete rule of Jesus, and compares the desired reach to that of Hitler or Ho Chi Minh? If this makes you at all apprehensive, then Jeff Sharlet’s “C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy” is a must-read.

“Jesus plus nothing” is the mantra of the Fellowship, also known as the Family, a secret, fundamentalist Christian organization peopled primarily by devout policy makers and high-ranking individuals. Though the nonbeliever’s view of religion can often be dismissive when faced with such catchphrases, in “C Street,” a nonfiction account of the extended reach of the Family, these phrases fuel moral crusades with real, and terrifying, impact.

Sharlet first introduced the world to the unseen hand of the Fellowship in “The Family” in 2008, in which he reported on the organization’s beginnings in the 18th century, uncovered the role of the Family in America’s legislative system and uncovered the role of religious fundamentalism in our supposedly secular nation.

via The “Family” – Who Really Is Behind This Secret Organization?.

BP facing new legal threat over Gulf spill

An investor lawsuit against BP, claiming the oil giant repeatedly lied about its safety record, will be fronted by two ambitious politicians and range over more than five years of the company’s communications with shareholders.

A US court ruling helped to clarify the size and scope of the class-action suit, which is aimed at winning compensation for investors who lost money on BP shares in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill this year. The judge in Houston, Texas, agreed to roll seven cases into one class-action lawsuit, opening a new front in the British company’s legal battle in the US following the worst offshore oil spill in history.

An estimated 5 million barrels of oil spewed from a ruptured well into the ocean for almost three months after a fire sank the Deepwater Horizon rig in April. If successful, investors’ complaints could add billions of dollars to the costs of the incident to BP. It must also pay the tab for the clean-up operation, compensate businesses and communities on the Gulf coast, and negotiate a fine with US environmental authorities.

via BP facing new legal threat over Gulf spill – Business News, Business – The Independent.

New consumer agency is frightfully necessary — and late

No one has missed the headlines: Haphazard and possibly illegal practices at mortgage-servicing companies have called into question home foreclosures across the nation.

The latest disclosures are deeply troubling, but they should not come as a big surprise. For years, both individual homeowners and consumer advocates sounded alarms that foreclosure processes were riddled with problems.

While federal and state investigators are still examining exactly what has gone wrong and why, two things are clear.

via New consumer agency is frightfully necessary — and late – Issues & Ideas – MiamiHerald.com.

Next: Digital Totalitarianism – The Conspiracy to Abolish Cash

For many years figures on the political fringe, especially on the right, have claimed that the government and its corporate owners want to transform us into a cashless society. Their warnings about the conspiracy against paper money fell on deaf ears, primarily because the digitalization of financial transactions seemed more like the result of organic business trends than the manifestation of some sinister conspiracy.

Now, however, those who want to do away with liquid currency are stepping out of the shadows. They talk about increased efficiency and profit potential, but their real agenda is nothing less than enslavement of the human race.

“Physical currency is a bulky, germ-smeared, carbon-intensive, expensive medium of exchange. Let’s dump it,” argued David Wolman in Wired.

via Next: Digital Totalitarianism – The Conspiracy to Abolish Cash | The Smirking Chimp.

The Year They Began Calling Poverty and Homelessness an ‘Excuse’

“We don’t use poverty as an excuse for low achievement.” — Springfield, Ill. School District 186 Superintendent Walter Milton, Jr.

2010 wasn’t a very good year for public education — or public anything, for that matter.

A so-far jobless economic recovery has seen a sharp rise in child poverty and with it, new barriers for schools, teachers and learners. It’s a matter of fact that hungry and often homeless children aren’t as successful in the classroom as those who are well fed, clad and housed.

The past year has seen a drying up of stimulus funds along with further erosion and selling off and privatization of public space, more public school closings and consolidations. Schools and classrooms are growing in size. Massive tuition increases at both private and public colleges and universities render a college education less accessible to working class families, cutting off one of the few remaining pathways to class mobility.

Full Story Here: Mike Klonsky: The Year They Began Calling Poverty and Homelessness an ‘Excuse’.

FROM MIDDLE CLASS TO SLAVE CLASS – COURTESY OF THE FED, THE WHITE HOUSE, CONGRESS AND THE BANKERS.

There have long been claims that the banking crisis of 2008 was premeditated financial terrorism; a Google search turns up 215,000 references to that proposition, including Dylan Rattigan’s widely viewed exposes on CNBC and elsewhere. The banks were overextended on derivatives trades that could not be met, and they had knowingly foisted “AAA-rated’ toxic mortgage debt, certain to blowup, onto unsuspecting European banks and American pension funds. Moreover, the privatization of Social Security, which George W. Bush pushed hard for, was intended to pull in trillions of dollars to Wall Street investment banks that would have papered over the losses. When that failed in Congress, the writing was on the wall. Was the financial meltdown calculated to force working people to pay off the debts of the Wall Street gamblers and cover the potential bond losses of the richest one percent? Probably. Congressional investigations stopped short of accusations that would have resulted in legal prosecutions. And no wonder. Wall Street banks dump millions in campaign donations on senators and congressmen every year. Quite the gravy train. Add to this the suspicion of many traders that Lehman Brothers was allowed to go down because that firm was Goldman Sachs’ chief rival on the Street and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was a Goldman guy, and you have a picture of likely corruption on all levels.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: FROM MIDDLE CLASS TO SLAVE CLASS – COURTESY OF THE FED, THE WHITE HOUSE, CONGRESS AND THE BANKERS..

CNN: 61% of Republicans rooting for failure

Opinion Research Corporation for CNN. 12/17-19. 1000 American adults. MoE 3.0%.

In general, do you hope that Barack Obama’s policies will succeed or do you hope that his policies will fail?

Among all American adults: (MoE: 3.0%)

Succeed: 61%

Fail: 27%

Among Democrats: (MoE: 6.5%)

Succeed: 89%

Fail: 5%

Among independents (MoE: 4.5%)

Succeed: 59%

Fail: 27%

Among Republicans: (MoE: 6.0%)

Succeed: 27%

Fail: 61%

Given that the overwhelming majority of Americans hope President Obama’s policies succeed, your first reaction to those numbers might be to shrug. But the fact that more than a quarter of Americans are rooting for his policies to fail is actually a fairly substantial chunk of the country and you won’t be surprised to find out who is rooting for failure: the GOP.

Full Story Here: Daily Kos: State of the Nation.

OPS: more proof that Republicans are suicidal and want to take the rest of us with them

Electronic Pickpocketing Targets Credit and Debit Cards with RFID Technology

Electronic Pickpocketing Targets Credit and Debit Cards with RFID Technology – WREG.

America is about to slide into third world status?

Thom Hartmann: :

Economist Michael Hudson joins Thom to talk about countries looking for alternatives to US dollar and rescued banks teetering towards collapse.

What Is in Fast Food? A Newly Discovered Reason to Avoid Fast Food

A new study shows that toxicperfluoroalkyls, which are used in surface protection treatments and coatings to keep grease from leaking through fast food wrappers, are being ingested by people through their food and showing up as contaminants in blood.

Perfluoroalkyls are a hazardous class of stable, synthetic chemicals that repel oil, grease and water.

As reported by University of Toronto researchers, the chemicals studied in human blood, urine and feces were polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters (PAPs), which are the breakdown products of the perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs) used in coating the food wrappers. Scientists said the exposure to humans through this means “should be considered as a significant indirect source of PFCA.”

That means you now have a new reason to avoid fast foods.

Full Story Here: Dr. Joseph Mercola: What Is in Fast Food? A Newly Discovered Reason to Avoid Fast Food.

As Home Prices Drop, ‘Serious Reasons To Worry’ About Economy (VIDEO)

Home prices have dropped across America more than expected, in a slide that has led some experts to predict that housing is headed for a double-dip.

Yet despite a glut of homes lingering in foreclosure proceedings, analysts say that a recovery in the housing market will, in large part, depend on an overall economic recovery.

Data released this week from the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller index across 20 major U.S. cities fell 1.3% in October from September, the third straight national decline.

Full Story Here: As Home Prices Drop, ‘Serious Reasons To Worry’ About Economy (VIDEO).

Brazil to build ‘underwater cities’ to drill for oil

Brazil’s state oil company is planning to do away with offshore oil drilling platforms and replace them with automated “underwater cities” that extract oil.

In what could prove to be one of the most ambitious industrial projects ever undertaken, Petrobras is drawing up plans to place giant machinery and robots 6,000 feet under the sea floor, with humans controlling the oil-drilling “city” remotely, the Telegraph reports.

The underwater city would be capable of separating oil from sand and water, and even generating its own energy.

“Our target is that we won’t need platforms ten years from now,” Carlos Tadeu Fraga of the Petrobras Research Center told the Telegraph.

Full Story Here: Brazil to build ‘underwater cities’ to drill for oil | Raw Story.

Georgia Bill Would Force State Taxpayers To Pay Only In Gold Or Silver

Georgia state Rep. Bobby Franklin (R) loves to introduce far-right reactionary bills. Among his greatest hits are an assault of Georgia’s authority to vaccinate its citizens, an unconstitutional bill declaring Roe v. Wade a “nullity,” and, of course, a bill eliminating income taxes.

Yet Franklin may have outdone himself with his “Constitutional Tender Act,” which would require all transactions with the state of Georgia — including the payment of taxes — to be paid with U.S. minted gold or silver coins unless the state agrees to grant a special waiver for each transaction:

Pre-1965 silver coins, silver eagles, and gold eagles shall be the exclusive medium which the state shall use to make any payments whatsoever to any person or entity, whether private or governmental. Such coins shall be the exclusive medium which the state shall accept from any person or entity as payment of any obligation to the state including, without limitation, the payment of taxes; provided, however, that such coins and other forms of currency may be used in all other transactions within the state upon mutual consent of the parties of any such transaction.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Georgia Bill Would Force State Taxpayers To Pay Only In Gold Or Silver.

US to Vatican: Genetically Modified Food Is a “Moral Imperative”

Secret United States diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks detail efforts to promote genetically modified (GM) crops and biotechnology across the globe, including the Vatican, where US diplomats pushed the Roman Catholic Church to support biotech food in developing nations.

Cables from embassies in Spain, Austria and even Pakistan reveal the US diplomats have clearly sided with the biotech industry, even as court cases and public debates over GM food raged in the US and abroad.

In 2005, a US diplomat and a USAID official met with Catholic leaders in Rome to discuss biotech foods, according to a leaked cable. The diplomats reported that Catholic leaders said the science and safety of GM food would soon be a “non-issue” in the Vatican and signaled a cautious acceptance of biotech products despite active opposition among the faithful:

Full Story Here: US to Vatican: Genetically Modified Food Is a “Moral Imperative”.

THE RICH VERSUS THE REST OF US

Jim Hightower:

Apparently, you and I owe an apology to the extravagantly-rich in our society. They’re reported to be in a deep pout and a political funk because We the People have hurt their feelings.

This stems from the public’s simmering anger over the fact that the Wall Street barons who crashed our economy are back to paying themselves multimillion-dollar bonuses, while the corporate CEOs who keep downsizing and offshoring our middle class opportunities are grabbing bigger paychecks than ever for themselves. The wealthy swells are upset by our anger and feel picked on by us riff-raff – they don’t like being blamed for our economic distress, even though they are to blame, and they certainly don’t like the rising populist fervor for more economic fairness in our country. So they’re mad at us for being mad at them, claiming that they are victims of our “wealth envy.”

Full Story Here: Jim Hightower | THE RICH VERSUS THE REST OF US.

The BP Oil Spill Saga: Where Things Stand Now

The BP oil spill in the Gulf killed 11 workers in April, released nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and triggered multiple government investigations and an overhaul of the nation’s offshore drilling regulatory agency.

Federal scientists estimated in August that between 53,000 and 62,000 barrels spilled into the Gulf each day until the well was temporarily plugged in July. BP has contested those numbers, arguing that the figures are flawed [PDF]. If the company prevails, it could reduce the size of its per-barrel pollution fines by billions of dollars, as well as what it may eventually have to pay to the government in lost royalties if the spill is found to be a result of BP’s negligence.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: The BP Oil Spill Saga: Where Things Stand Now.

How many American christians are really atheists?

I’m not the first guy to raise this question and I won’t be the last, but what the heck, let’s talk about it.

A lot of Americans think of themselves as “progressive christians” or “liberal christians,” and I count a good number of them among my friends and colleagues. Not long ago I was talking to one of these friends and we wandered into the subject of religion. Dawkins and Harris were invoked, as might be expected. Anti-Dawkins and -Harris resistance was encountered, also expected. So I finally decided to ask some questions that I had always wanted answers to, but had never actually asked.

The ensuing conversation went something like this:

Full Story Here: Scholars and Rogues » How many American christians are really atheists?.

In Money-Changers We Trust

Two years into the Obama presidency and the economic data is still looking grim. Don’t be fooled by the gyrations of the stock market, where optimism is mostly a reflection of the ability of financial corporations—thanks to massive government largesse—to survive the mess they created. The basics are dismal: Unemployment is unacceptably high, the December consumer confidence index is down and housing prices have fallen for four months in a row. The number of Americans living in poverty has never been higher, and a majority in a Washington Post poll said they were worried about making their next mortgage or rent payment.

In a parallel universe lives Peter Orszag, President Barack Obama’s former budget director and key adviser, who even faster than his mentor, Robert Rubin, has passed through that revolving platinum door linking the White House with Wall Street. The goal is to use your government position to advance the interests of your future employer, and Orszag and Rubin’s actions in the government and then at Citigroup provide stunning examples of the synergy between big government and high finance.

As Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, Rubin presided over the dismantling of Glass-Steagall, the New Deal legislation that would have prohibited the creation of the too-big-to-fail Citigroup. He was rewarded with a $15-million-a-year job at Citigroup, where he became a leader in the bank’s aggressive move into high-risk ventures. An SEC report in September claimed that Rubin as Citigroup chairman was aware that the bank failed to disclose $40 billion it held in subprime mortgages before the collapse.

Full Story Here: Robert Scheer: In Money-Changers We Trust – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.

Judge says cops can’t track with GPS

- In what may set a Delaware precedent, a Superior Court judge has gutted a criminal case against a Newark man who was pulled over with 10 pounds of marijuana because police used a GPS tracking device without a warrant to follow him for nearly a month.

In court papers, Deputy Attorney General Brian Robertson argued that information from a global positioning device that police attached to the car of Michael D. Holden was only a part of a larger “multifaceted” case against the 28-year-old by officers with the interagency Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force.On the day in question, Feb. 24, police saw what they believed to be an exchange of cash for drugs in New Jersey — though they did not see cash or drugs, only bags. They called the Delaware River and Bay Authority Police to stop Holden’s car as it crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge. During that traffic stop, police recovered a duffel bag with 10 pounds of marijuana inside.

Full Story Here: Judge says cops can’t track with GPS | delawareonline.com | The News Journal.

Iraqi Prime Minister Says U.S. Forces Must Leave On Time

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled out the presence of any U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of 2011, saying his new government and the country’s security forces were capable of confronting any remaining threats to Iraq’s security, sovereignty and unity.

Mr. Maliki spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a two-hour interview, his first since Iraq ended nine months of stalemate and seated a new government after an inconclusive election, allowing Mr. Maliki to begin a second term as premier.

A majority of Iraqis—and some Iraqi and U.S. officials—have assumed the U.S. troop presence would eventually be extended, especially after the long government limbo. But Mr. Maliki was eager to draw a line in his most definitive remarks on the subject. “The last American soldier will leave Iraq” as agreed, he said, speaking at his office in a leafy section of Baghdad’s protected Green Zone. “This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed.”

Full Story Here: Iraqi Prime Minister Says U.S. Forces Must Leave On Time – WSJ.com.

NOLA lawyer prepares challenge to declaration of Gulf seafood’s safety

An environmental law firm in New Orleans said it was preparing to challenge the government’s public declaration that following the nation’s worst-ever oil disaster, seafood from the Gulf of Mexico remained safe to eat.

Stuart H. Smith, Esq., of the law firm Smith Stag, LLC., was leading the charge, rallying additional litigants to his side through a website called Oil Spill Action.

He’s the attorney who secured a verdict awarding over $1 billion over the radium contamination of leased land due to oil drilling.

“Mr. Smith’s litigation experience includes a lawsuit against Ashland Oil for contaminating the Lee aquifer, once one of the largest sources of fresh water for residents in eastern Kentucky,” his self-published bio claims. “He also sued Chevron Corporation for damages associated with that company’s contamination of the groundwater in the rural town of Brookhaven, Mississippi. His firm also represents clients injured by chemicals and defective drugs.”

Full Story Here: NOLA lawyer prepares challenge to declaration of Gulf seafood’s safety | Raw Story.

Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain

Political opinions are considered choices, and in Western democracies the right to choose one’s opinions — freedom of conscience — is considered sacrosanct.

But recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives’ brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other “primitive” emotions. At the same time, conservatives’ brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate — the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

If the study is confirmed, it could give us the first medical explanation for why conservatives tend to be more receptive to threats of terrorism, for example, than liberals. And it may help to explain why conservatives like to plan based on the worst-case scenario, while liberals tend towards rosier outlooks.

Full Story Here: Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain | Raw Story.

Rep.-Elect Walsh Joins Just Four Other Republicans In Forgoing Government Health Care For Themselves

Responding to Rep.-elect Andy Harris’ (R-MD) hypocritical demand for government-sponsored health coverage last month, Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) circulated a letter among his colleagues calling on Harris and other members of Congress who want to repeal President Obama’s health care law to forgo their own government health care plans. At least four GOP congressmen have already announced they will turn down their congressional benefits, and a recent poll found that a majority Americans “think incoming Congressmen who campaigned against the health care bill should put their money where their mouth is and decline government provided health care now that they’re in office.” In an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, Rep.-elect Joe Walsh (R-IL) has said he too will forgo government health coverage:

And get this: he’s turned down the usual congressional health care, pension and retirement packages.

“I don’t think congressmen should get pensions or cushy health care plans,” he said. His wife is not exhilarated with the latter decision; she has a pre-existing medical condition and is now forced to hunt for a plan.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Rep.-Elect Walsh Joins Just Four Other Republicans In Forgoing Government Health Care For Themselves.

Sen. Shelby’s Pork Lust Forces NASA To Spend $500 Million On Canceled Rocket Program

Thanks to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), taxpayers are footing a $500 million bill for a NASA rocket that the agency has no plans or desire to continue developing. The Orlando Sentinel reports that pork legislation inserted into a spending bill by Shelby earlier this year is requiring NASA to spend millions on the canceled Ares I rocket program through March, even while the agency can’t find funds to begin a much-needed modernization of the famed Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida:

At the root of the problem is a 70-word sentence inserted into the 2010 budget — by lawmakers seeking to protect Ares I jobs in their home states — that bars NASA from shutting down the program until Congress passed a new budget a year later. [...]

But Congress never passed a 2011 budget and instead voted this month to extend the 2010 budget until March — so NASA still must abide by the 2010 language.[...]

The language that keeps Constellation going was inserted into the 2010 budget last year by U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who sought to protect the program and Ares jobs at Marshall Space Flight Center in his home state.

His office confirmed that the language was still in effect but did not respond to e-mails seeking details.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Sen. Shelby’s Pork Lust Forces NASA To Spend $500 Million On Canceled Rocket Program.

Fmr. Shell president ‘predicting’ $5-a-gallon gas in 2012

The former president of Shell Oil said he believes Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon a gas by 2012.

“I’m predicting actually the worst outcome over the next two years which takes us to 2012 with higher gasoline prices,” John Hofmeister said in a recent interview with Platts Energy Week television.

Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with Oil Price Information Service, agreed that Americans would see $5 a gallon gas but told CNN that he did not believe it would happen in 2012. “That wolf is out there and it’s going to be at the door…I agree with him that we’ll see those numbers at some point this decade but not yet.”

“The demand is still sluggish enough in some of the mature economies,” he said.

Full Story Here: Fmr. Shell president ‘predicting’ $5-a-gallon gas in 2012 | Raw Story.

Greenwald trashes CNN contributors for ‘extreme misinformation’ on WikiLeaks

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald tore into two CNN personalities Monday for their framing of a discussion about secrets outlet WikiLeaks.

First, Greenwald blasted CNN’s Jessica Yellin for suggesting that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was profiting from the disclosure of classified information. Assange has said that he agreed to a $1.3 million book deal to help defray legal costs.

Then he tore into CNN contributor and former Bush Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, calling out her lie that WikiLeaks had dumped 250,000 US State Department cables without redacting sensitive information.

Full Story Here: Greenwald trashes CNN contributors for ‘extreme misinformation’ on WikiLeaks | Raw Story.

Retirement Account Fantasy And Middle Class Erosion – 1 Out Of 3 Americans Has Zero Dollars In A Retirement Account

Retirement account fantasy and middle class erosion – 1 out of 3 Americans has zero dollars in a retirement account.

From 1950 to 1989 top 1 percent earned roughly 7 to 8 percent of nationwide income. Today it is inching closer to 20 percent resembling pre-Great Depression levels.

Many Americans live precariously close to the edge of financial insolvency flirting with economic disaster daily. If you casually browse mainstream articles and watch any amount of television you would think that the US still had a vibrant and strong middle class. When we pull back the covers on the current financial situation we realize that many Americans are merely getting by and many would like to live in some 1984 Orwellian fantasy world where suddenly things are back to financial equilibrium. 43 million Americans are depending on government food assistance to get by. But many more millions are merely living paycheck to paycheck hidden in the cellar of the headlines. 1 out of 3 Americans has zero in any retirement account (not one slowly eroding dollar). Half of Americans have $2,000 or less which puts them one month away from needing government assistance. With the volatile job market and turbulent Wall Street middle class Americans are feeling the once prided stability being slowly washed away. Let us examine how retirement is now becoming more of a fantasy for many Americans.

Full Story Here: Guest Post: Retirement Account Fantasy And Middle Class Erosion – 1 Out Of 3 Americans Has Zero Dollars In A Retirement Account | zero hedge.

Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With it, Reason and Justice

While much condemnation has rightly been expressed toward Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, a less-reported and potentially more sinister measure is set to take effect on January 1, 2011. This new law, which was passed by the conservative state legislature at the behest of then-School Superintendent (and now Attorney General-elect) Tom Horne, is designated HB 2281 and is colloquially referred to as a measure to ban ethnic studies programs in the state. As with SB 1070, the implications of this law are problematic, wide-ranging and decidedly hate filled.

Whereas SB 1070 focused primarily on the ostensible control of bodies, HB 2281 is predominantly about controlling minds. In this sense, it is the software counterpart of Arizona’s race-based politicking, paired with the hardware embodied in SB 1070′s “show us your papers” logic of “attrition through enforcement,” which has already resulted in tens of thousands of people leaving the state. With HB 2281, the intention is not so much to expel or harass as it is to inculcate a deep-seated, second-class status by denying people the right to explore their own histories and cultures. It is, in effect, about the eradication of ethnic identity among young people in the state’s already-floundering school system, which now ranks near the bottom in the nation.

Full Story Here: Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies and, Along With it, Reason and Justice.

Where Things Stand: Foreclosure Paperwork Scandal

Some struggling homeowners are currently getting a temporary reprieve from foreclosure sales and evictions during the holiday season, but that doesn’t mean all foreclosure cases have stopped moving through the courts — and it doesn’t mean we’re done covering the developments in the foreclosure scandal either. Here’s where things stand:

Earlier this year, the discovery of sloppy documentation practices across the mortgage servicing industry caused many banks — first GMAC, then Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and others — to temporarily freeze foreclosure sales as they conducted reviews of their document processing procedures. Mortgage servicers — often divisions within large banks — handle the day-to-day collection of mortgage payments. They’re also supposed to provide loan assistance to struggling homeowners. Banks cast the problems as procedural mistakes but asserted that the underlying information in key foreclosure documents was accurate and did not result in any wrongful foreclosures. (As we’ve noted, banks and foreclosure defense attorneys disagree on what constitutes a wrongful foreclosure.)

One by one, they resumed some or all foreclosures and are re-filing the questionable documents, but attorneys for homeowners have said that the fixes have been inadequate and the result has been “more of the same.” Last week, the Daily Business Review reported that new rules in Florida to remedy the problem of robo-signers — bank employees who had signed foreclosure documents without verifying their accuracy — had given rise to “robo-verifiers” who simply go through the motions of double-checking the documents.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: Where Things Stand: Foreclosure Paperwork Scandal.

Man quits job, makes living suing e-mail spammers

California marketer quits job, gets law degree to pursue anti-spam crusade with lawsuits

Daniel Balsam hates spam. Most everybody does, of course. But he has acted on his hate as few have, going far beyond simply hitting the delete button. He sues them.

Eight years ago, Balsam was working as a marketer when he received one too many e-mail pitches to enlarge his breasts.

Enraged, he launched a Web site called Danhatesspam.com, quit a career in marketing to go to law school and is making a decent living suing companies who flood his e-mail inboxes with offers of cheap drugs, free sex and unbelievable vacations.

Full Story Here: Man quits job, makes living suing e-mail spammers | Raw Story.

Most workers are ready to look for new jobs in 2011

Employers watch out: Your workers can’t wait to quit.

According to a recent survey by job-placement firm Manpower, 84% of employees plan to look for a new position in 2011. That’s up from just 60% last year.

Most employees have sat tight through the recession, not even considering other jobs because so few firms were hiring. For the past few years, the Labor Department’s quits rate, which serves as a barometer of workers’ ability to change jobs, has hovered near an all-time low.

But after years of increased work and frozen compensation, “a lot of people will be looking because they’re disappointed with their current jobs,” said Paul Bernard, a veteran executive coach and career management advisor who runs his own firm.

Full Story Here: Most workers are ready to look for new jobs in 2011 – Dec. 23, 2010.

The promises Obama wants you to keep forgetting

What candidate Obama promised and, two years into his presidency, has not delivered

In early December, a combative President Obama challenged reporters at a press conference: “Look at what I promised during the campaign. There’s not a single thing that I’ve said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do. And if I haven’t gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it.”

Given the president’s challenge, and the fact that we’re about to reach the halfway mark of his administration, we took the opportunity to check in on his campaign pledges. As it turns out, there are plenty of clearly stated promises, in areas big and small, that Obama has not kept. PolitiFact, which pretty much has this market cornered, has been tracking hundreds of Obama promises.

A few broken promises, like Obama’s pledge to shutter the prison at Guantánamo Bay, are well known. But there are plenty more campaign promises that have disappeared down the memory hole — and that Obama would prefer to stay there. Here is a sampling of five:

Full Story Here: The promises Obama wants you to keep forgetting – War Room – Salon.com.

GOP Not Allowed to Talk About the “Will of the Public”

John Boehner can’t stop talking about the “will of the public” these days. Now that the Republicans have won the House, he keeps saying over and over that the Democrats must go along with Republican plans from now on because they have to listen to the… will of the public.

Well, here’s what I don’t remember — the Republicans giving a damn about the will of the public after the 2008 elections. The American people spoke as loudly and clearly as I have ever seen in any election in my lifetime. They gave the House and the Senate by overwhelming margins to the Democrats. They also gave the Democrats the White House, and along with it, complete control of Washington. And did the Republicans listen to the will of the public, then? No, they blocked that will at every turn.

So, you’ll excuse me now if I’m not buying the sudden increased interest the GOP has in listening to the American people and the results of an election. They never for one second respected the results of the 2008 election. They didn’t give a damn what the American people wanted.

Full Story Here: Cenk Uygur: GOP Not Allowed to Talk About the “Will of the Public”.

The Progressive Honor Roll of 2010

The year 2010 will not be remembered as a halcyon year for progressives. But in such years the truest believers and battlers stand out all the more clearly, and patterns are set for the victories of the years to come. Here, then, are the Most Valuable Progressives of 2010:

MOST VALUABLE SENATOR: Bernie Sanders
When Vermont’s Bernie Sanders waged a nearly nine-hour December filibuster against extending tax breaks for the rich, he capped a year of not just taking the right stands but acting in a bolder—and invariably more effective—manner than any other senator. Sanders is an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, but this year the emphasis was on independence. He parted with the White House and Congressional leaders to push harder and smarter on issues ranging from media consolidation and the defense of small farmers to healthcare reform and financial regulation. During the healthcare debate Sanders argued mightily for single-payer and a public option. He got neither, but he did secure a provision doubling the number of Federally Qualified Health Centers, which should increase the number of patients receiving primary care at these centers by at least 18 million during the coming decade. Later in the year he amended the final financial services reform bill to require the Federal Reserve to disclose its secret arrangements to aid the nation’s largest banks. This “lifting the veil of secrecy at the Fed,” as Sanders referred to it, revealed that big banks and multinational corporations collected an estimated $3.3 trillion in “emergency” loans and other assistance even as they refused to restructure mortgages or make loans to small businesses in Vermont and other states.

Principled and populist, yet practical enough to get things done, Sanders points the way for progressives in the next Congress by reminding them they can win if they address the stark reality that “there is a war going on in this country…a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful…against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class.”

Full Story Here: The Progressive Honor Roll of 2010 | The Nation.

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

Chris Hedges

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Full Story Here: Chris Hedges: 2011: A Brave New Dystopia – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Lehman Auditors Charged With Fraud

The charges brought by Cuomo are civil, and they do not target any Lehman executives, but there is some good news as you’ll read below.

Accounting firm Ernst & Young was sued by New York prosecutors over allegations it helped to hide Lehman Brothers’ financial problems, in the first major government legal action stemming from the Wall Street company’s 2008 downfall.

The civil fraud case contends that Ernst & Young stood by while Lehman used accounting gimmickry to mask its shaky finances. The lawsuit says Lehman ran “a massive accounting fraud,” but it did not name as defendants any former top executives at the investment bank whose September 2008 collapse helped spark the global financial crisis.

The lawsuit seeks more than $150 million in fees that Ernst & Young received from 2001 to 2008 as Lehman’s outside auditor — less than 1 percent of its global annual revenue — plus other unspecified damages.

Full Story Here: Lehman Auditors Charged With Fraud – Home – The Daily Bail.

‘Homeland’ security coming to hotels, malls

The United States is stepping up security at “soft targets” like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

A year after a foiled plot to bomb a US-bound passenger plane, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that other places and modes of transportation must now be scrutinized.

“We look at so-called soft targets — the hotels, shopping malls, for example — all of which we have reached out to in the past year and have done a fair amount of training for their own employees,” Napolitano said.

Full Story Here: ‘Homeland’ security coming to hotels, malls | Raw Story.

States Scramble to Repay Feds for Unemployment Insurance Loans—Plus Interest

Thanks to the stimulus bill, the 31 states that have borrowed more than $41 billion from the feds to pay unemployment insurance to jobless workers have not had to pay interest on those loans so far, as we’ve reported. That will change, however, when the provision that waived interest payments expires in the new year. States with outstanding loans will have to begin paying interest on their loans in 2011 or else give back federal grant money used to administer state unemployment insurance programs, according to McClatchy Newspapers:

The federal government estimates the collective interest on the outstanding loans will total about $2 billion in 2011, while continued state borrowing is expected to stretch the outstanding loan amount to $65 billion by fiscal year 2013.In addition, employers in about 25 states could face additional federal tax penalties of $21 to $84 per employee if state loans aren’t paid by November 2011. Unemployment insurance programs are run by the states, but financed by federal and state taxes on wages.

As we’ve noted, some states have had to borrow from the federal government because they’ve chronically underfunded their own insurance trust funds. States with little left in their own unemployment insurance trust fund reserves have a few options at their disposal to pay back these loans with the additional interest.

Full Story Here: On The Hill: States Scramble to Repay Feds for Unemployment Insurance Loans—Plus Interest.

America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane

A look at our empire in decline through the eyes of the European media.

As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less — right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical — the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

Full Story Here: America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane | World | AlterNet.

Expect more extreme winters thanks to global warming, say scientists

Expect more extreme winters thanks to global warming, say scientists // Current.

Top Ten Ways The Right Will Wreck The Recovery

Conservatives have a legislative agenda for 2011 that will hurt your ability to get or keep a job, your neighborhood’s ability to recover from the recession and this country’s ability to regain its footing in the global economy.

To keep conservatives from enacting policies that will kill a nascent economic recovery, progressives will have to organize against these top 10 economy killers

Full Story Here: Top Ten Ways The Right Will Wreck The Recovery | OurFuture.org.

Probe finds ‘total collapse of BP rig defenses’

The April 20 explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that caused the largest environmental disaster in US history occurred because every single defense on the rig named Deepwater Horizon failed, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The newspaper, which undertook its own investigation of the blast that killed 11 rig workers and injured dozens of others, said some of the defenses were deployed but did not work, some were activated too late, and some were never deployed at all.

Communications fell apart, warning signs were missed and crew members in critical areas failed to coordinate a response, the report pointed out.

The result was paralysis, The Times said.

Full Story Here: AFP: Probe finds ‘total collapse of BP rig defenses’.

What is Traitorware?

Your digital camera may embed metadata into photographs with the camera’s serial number or your location. Your printer may be incorporating a secret code on every page it prints which could be used to identify the printer and potentially the person who used it. If Apple puts a particularly creepy patent it has recently applied for into use, you can look forward to a day when your iPhone may record your voice, take a picture of your location, record your heartbeat, and send that information back to the mothership.

This is traitorware: devices that act behind your back to betray your privacy.

Perhaps the most notable example of traitorware was the Sony rootkit. In 2005 Sony BMG produced CD’s which clandestinely installed a rootkit onto PC’s that provided administrative-level access to the users’ computer. The copy-protected music CD’s would surreptitiously install its DRM technology onto PC’s. Ostensibly, Sony was trying prevent consumers from making multiple copies of their CD’s, but the software also rendered the CD incompatible with many CD-ROM players in PC’s, CD players in cars, and DVD players. Additionally, the software left a back door open on all infected PC’s which would give Sony, or any hacker familiar with the rootkit, control over the PC. And if a consumer should have the temerity to find the rootkit and try to remove the offending drivers, the software would execute code designed to disable the CD drive and trash the PC.

Full Story Here: What is Traitorware? | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Is Barack Obama the Problem?

Robert Parry: :

Despite some recent victories like repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” many on the American Left are feeling a cumulative disgust toward President Barack Obama, not just for his generally timid policy choices but – even more so – for his failure to articulate and fight for progressive values.

After eight years of getting bullied by President George W. Bush – and even longer by Fox News, talk radio and congressional Republicans – many progressives, including many young voters, wanted a passionate advocate in the mold of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, himself a member of the American elite who treated his class with a knowing disdain. They got instead a silver-tongued conciliator who strives for the elite’s blessings.

So, even as Obama ticks off his legislative accomplishments – from helping women get a fair wage in his administration’s early days to his Wednesday signing of a law repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules for gays in the U.S. military – the President is not likely to gain much traction with his liberal “base” because he has failed to be what many of them hoped he would be: a battler.

While that estrangement will be difficult for Obama to overcome – especially given this month’s compromise with right-wing Republicans over extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich – the other question in this troubled marriage between Obama and his angry “base” is whether Obama is entirely at fault.

Full Story Here: Is Barack Obama the Problem?.

Making the Rich Happy

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Nicely in time for the end-of-year job ratings, President Obama has crawled from the political graveyard, where only a month ago wreaths were being heaped around his sepulcher. The Commentariat now gravely applauds his recent victories in the US Congress: repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell inhibitions on gays in the military; Senate ratification of the new START treaty on nuclear weapons with the Russians; passage of a $4.3bn bill – previously blocked by Republicans – providing health benefits for emergency rescue workers in the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

Something missing from my list? You noticed? Yes indeed: first and absolutely foremost, the successful deal with Republicans on taxes, better described as a $4 trillion gift to America’s rich people, by extending the Bush tax cuts. With the all-important tax surrender under their belts the Republicans don’t seem too upset in having allowing Obama’s his mini-swath of victories. There aren’t too many votes in insisting that 1500 nukes aren’t enough for Uncle Sam, particularly since Obama did his usual trick a year ago of surrendering before the battle began, pledging vast new outlays to the nuclear-industrial-complex. Would it have been that smart to deny benefits to 9/11 responders or say that gays in the military have to stay in the closet. Presumably they’ll fight all the more fiercely now they can stand Out and Proud. On things that really matter, once they reassemble after the break, the Republicans will probably stay awake, though with a President who surrenders with the alacrity of Obama, excessive vigilance probably isn’t necessary.

You give $4 trillion to the rich and they express their thanks in measured terms. Their hired opinion formers laud the spirit of admirable compromise enabling responsible members of Congress to come together in bipartisanship to keep the hogwallow open for business.

Full Story Here: Alexander Cockburn: Making the Rich Happy.

A Christmas carol of conservatives and liberals

JOHN NICHOLS: :

Charles Dickens would find these times rather too familiar for comfort. In seeking to awaken a spirit of charity in his countrymen, the author called attention to those who callously dismissed the poor as a burden and the unemployed as a lazy lot best forced by hunger to grab at bootstraps and pull themselves upward.

Dickens was, to be sure, more articulate than the members of Congress who grumbled on the cusp of this Christmas season about extending jobless benefits for the long unemployed. But surely he captured the essence of their sentiments in this imagining of a visit by two gentlemen, “liberals” we will call them, to a certain conservative businessman. Wrote Dickens:

They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. “Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,” said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?”

Full Story Here: John Nichols: A Christmas carol of conservatives and liberals.

Revolving Pentagon Door Exposes ‘Militarization of US Economy’

Defense firms lure retired generals

In large numbers, and with few rules, retiring generals are taking lucrative defense-firm jobs

An hour after the official ceremony marking the end of his 35-year career in the Air Force, General Gregory “Speedy’’ Martin returned to his quarters to swap his dress uniform for golf attire. He was ready for his first tee time as a retired four-star general.

But almost as soon as he closed the door that day in 2005 his phone rang. It was an executive at Northrop Grumman, asking if he was interested in working for the manufacturer of the B-2 stealth bomber as a paid consultant. A few weeks later, Martin received another call. This time it was the Pentagon, asking him to join a top-secret Air Force panel studying the future of stealth aircraft technology.

Full Story Here: Defense firms lure retired generals – The Boston Globe.

Banks and WikiLeaks

NYTimes – OpEd: :

The whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks has not been convicted of a crime. The Justice Department has not even pressed charges over its disclosure of confidential State Department communications. Nonetheless, the financial industry is trying to shut it down.

Visa, MasterCard and PayPal announced in the past few weeks that they would not process any transaction intended for WikiLeaks. Earlier this month, Bank of America decided to join the group, arguing that WikiLeaks may be doing things that are “inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments.”

The Federal Reserve, the banking regulator, allows this. Like other companies, banks can choose whom they do business with. Refusing to open an account for some undesirable entity is seen as reasonable risk management. The government even requires banks to keep an eye out for some shady businesses — like drug dealing and money laundering — and refuse to do business with those who engage in them.

Full Story Here: Banks and WikiLeaks – NYTimes.com.

Cold Remedies: How To Stop A Cold In Its Tracks

A tickle in your throat. A cloudy head. An achy body. Yep, you’re coming down with something. Again. The average adult gets three colds per year, each lasting an average of nine days, says Jane Sadler, M.D., a family practice physician at Baylor-Garland Hospital in Garland, Texas. But you don’t have to surrender. Here’s how to stop a cold before it takes hold — and feel better by tomorrow.

Staying hydrated cuts down on symptoms like a sore throat and stuffy nose, says William Schaffner, M.D., professor and chair of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Full Story Here: Cold Remedies: How To Stop A Cold In Its Tracks (PHOTOS).

Top Army Official: Soldiers Need More Time At Home Between Deployments

Repeated troop deployments are putting an enormous strain on members of the U.S. military who are forced to deploy to Iraq and/or Afghanistan with an insufficient amount of time at home between rotations, according to a top Army official.

On ABC’s “This Week,” host Christiane Amanpour asked Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s vice-chief of staff, how U.S. servicemembers are affected by repeated deployments. There are approximately 2 million men and women who have been rotated through the two wars.

“You want to get at these issues, we need more time at home before deployment,” said Chiarelli. “I was just down range, and I went to an aviation for a day of about 1,500 folks. Those senior pilots in that unit, those individuals who have been flying mission after mission, 62 percent of whom are on their third — their third deployment, and over 40 — 40 percent, almost 40 percent were on their fourth deployment, with very, very little time at home.”

Full Story Here: Top Army Official Peter Chiarelli: Soldiers Need More Time At Home Between Deployments.

As application approvals drop, work on secret wiretaps grows, U.S. government sources say

Even as the Justice Department reports a two-year decline in the number of wiretap applications approved by a secret U.S. intelligence court, the workload of Justice Department lawyers assigned to request and oversee such sensitive surveillance activities appears to be growing.

The activity by the department’s National Security Division, which is responsible for obtaining authorization from a secret court to tap Americans’ telephone calls and e-mails and conduct other surveillance, was a prominent factor cited by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in a campaign this month to prod the Senate into confirming President Obama‘s nomination of James M. Cole to serve as Holder’s deputy.

The deputy attorney general oversees the division “and is called upon to make crucial time-sensitive decisions to protect the American people” in counterterrorism investigations, eight former deputies wrote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Dec. 1, urging a vote for Cole.

Full Story Here: As application approvals drop, work on secret wiretaps grows, U.S. government sources say.

Conservative candidates received more news coverage during 2010 elections, surveys find

Right-wing candidates received more news coverage from mainstream media during the 2010 mid-term election season, according to a recent study.

A Pew Research Center survey found that although the Democratic President Barack Obama topped the list, the next three of the top 10 candidates in the media spotlight were members of the so-called tea party movement.

Directly running behind Obama’s coverage and leading the conservative pack was GOP candidate Christine O’Donnell of Delaware.

Full Story Here: Conservative candidates received more news coverage during 2010 elections, surveys find | Raw Story.

ACLU’s Holiday Message Labeled ‘Suspicious Activity’ By Tennessee Counter-Terrorism Officials

Tennessee’s state counter-terrorism officials at the Tennessee Fusion Center maintain an open-source internet map which identifies “terrorism events and other suspicious activity.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee found its way briefly onto the map earlier this month, after the civil rights group penned a letter to school superintendents encouraging “schools to be supportive of all religious beliefs during the holiday season.” The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports what happened next:

The Fusion Center’s Internet map is part of a national map maintained by globalincidentmap.com. Information is provided by agencies across the U.S. It includes various blinking icons. The map’s label originally was titled Terrorism Events and Other Suspicious Activity.

Near Nashville, a blinking hexagon-shaped symbol with an exclamation point read “ACLU cautions TN schools about ‘observing one religious holiday.’” The hexagon symbol, when clicked on, originally stated “suspicious activity.” But it later was changed to say “general nonincident terrorism news” after inquiries by reporters.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » ACLU’s Holiday Message Labeled ‘Suspicious Activity’ By Tennessee Counter-Terrorism Officials.

Rick Scott’s Economic Advisers Manipulate Research To Claim Unemployed Are Lazy And Don’t Try To Find Jobs

Rick Scott, the corrupt and fraudulent former health care executive who is soon to be Florida’s next Governor, received a report from his economic transition team this week that recommended he needs to crack down on the unemployed. Scott’s economic team, headed by the state’s most affluent business leaders, quoted research by former Obama administration official Alan Krueger to claim that the unemployed are lazy and need to be driven off unemployment benefits:

“According to [former U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Alan] Krueger’s research, the amount of time people on UC spent looking for a job averaged only 20 minutes a day! Within 2 weeks of UC ending, that increased but to only 70 minutes a day,” states the document, noting that the median duration of unemployment benefits receipt has increased nationally from 10 weeks to 18.7 weeks.

The team’s recommendations: tighten job-search requirements for people getting benefits, cut off assistance for those who don’t comply and assign community work for those who don’t get a job in 12 weeks. Goals: increase employment and reduce the payout of unemployment benefits, as well as the unemployment compensation tax burden on businesses.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Rick Scott’s Economic Advisers Manipulate Research To Claim Unemployed Are Lazy And Don’t Try To Find Jobs.

Nearly One In Nine Federal Judgeships Are Now Vacant

The Senate adjourned earlier this week, even though it confirmed only half of the 38 judicial nominees awaiting a vote on the Senate floor. And the overwhelming majority of the blocked nominees cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee without a single negative vote.

This failure to confirm even many of the most uncontroversial nominees is the culmination of a concerted GOP strategy to delay as many of President Obama’s judges as much as possible, and it leaves Obama with fewer judges confirmed than any recent president:

The Senate’s failure to even hold a vote on these nominees leaves the federal judiciary with record vacancies — approximately one in nine federal judgeships are now vacant.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Nearly One In Nine Federal Judgeships Are Now Vacant.

Archbishop of Canterbury calls on rich to ‘shoulder the load’ with the poor

Rowan Williams says hardship must be ‘fairly shared’ in rebuke of public sector cuts, but supports idea of ‘big society’

The archbishop of Canterbury today said that the burden of the economic downturn should be “fairly shared”, amid fears that the less well-off in society were being hit the hardest.

In his Christmas Day sermon, Dr Rowan Williams spoke of “a lasting sense the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load”. His comments might be seen to support the stance of trade unions and students who have claimed that, as the coalition government seeks to slash the national deficit, the less well-off are being penalised as a result of a recession caused by the folly of City bankers.

Williams said: “Confidence isn’t in huge supply at the moment, given the massive crises of trust that have shaken us all in the last couple of years and the lasting sense that the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load.”

Full Story Here: Archbishop of Canterbury calls on rich to ‘shoulder the load’ with the poor | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

OPS:  LOL, I’m sure they’ll listen, and act.

Who Killed the Disneyland Dream?

Frank Rich:

OF the many notable Americans we lost in 2010, three leap out as paragons of a certain optimistic American spirit that we also seemed to lose this year. Two you know: Theodore Sorensen, the speechwriter present at the creation of J.F.K.’s clarion call to “ask what you can do for your country,” and Richard Holbrooke, the diplomat who brought peace to the killing fields of Bosnia in the 1990s. Holbrooke, who was my friend, came of age in the Kennedy years and exemplified its can-do idealism. He gave his life to the proposition that there was nothing an American couldn’t accomplish if he marshaled his energy and talents. His premature death — while heroically bearing the crushing burdens of Afghanistan and Pakistan — is tragic in more ways than many Americans yet realize.

But a third representative American optimist who died this year, at age 91, is a Connecticut man who was not a player in great events and whom I’d never heard of until I read his Times obituary: Robbins Barstow, an amateur filmmaker who for decades recorded his family’s doings in home movies of such novelty and quality that one of them, the 30-minute “Disneyland Dream,” was admitted to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress two years ago. That rare honor elevates Barstow’s filmmaking to a pantheon otherwise restricted mostly to Hollywood classics, from “Citizen Kane” to “Star Wars.”

“Disneyland Dream” was made in the summer of 1956, shortly before the dawn of the Kennedy era. You can watch it on line at archive.org or on YouTube. Its narrative is simple. The young Barstow family of Wethersfield, Conn. — Robbins; his wife, Meg; and their three children aged 4 to 11 — enter a nationwide contest to win a free trip to Disneyland, then just a year old. The contest was sponsored by 3M, which asked contestants to submit imaginative encomiums to the wonders of its signature product. Danny, the 4-year-old, comes up with the winning testimonial, emblazoned on poster board: “I like ‘Scotch’ brand cellophane tape because when some things tear then I can just use it.”

Full Story Here: Who Killed the Disneyland Dream? – NYTimes.com.

Top 8 Drug Stories of 2010: Momentum Is Building to End the Failed Drug War

The debate around failed marijuana prohibition and the larger drug war arrived in a big way in 2010. Here are some of the most significant stories of the year.

It’s been a difficult year for progressives, and most other Americans as well. While I feel discouraged about many things happening in our country and around the world, and have lost lots of my “Yes We Can” glow from only two years ago, the issue that is closest to my heart — ending the war on people who use drugs — continues to bring me hope and cautious optimism.

The debate around failed marijuana prohibition and the larger drug war arrived in a big way in 2010. Below are some of the most significant stories from 2010 and the reasons why I’m encouraged that we can start finding an exit strategy from America’s longest running war.

Full Story Here: Top 8 Drug Stories of 2010: Momentum Is Building to End the Failed Drug War | | AlterNet.

Analysis of Net Neutrality rules

Genachowski Wins on Net Neutrality, Sort of

After a down-to-the-wire push, the Federal Communications Commission this week approved by 3-2 its long-awaited regulatory proposal on net neutrality. We haven’t finished combing through the actual rules document, all 200 pages of which were just released today, but nonetheless the summary documents gave us some important hints about what the rules contain.

The FCC’s Basis for Regulating: Contrary to some expectations, the FCC is offering new theories for its regulatory authority, opting not to re-assert the “ancillary” legal theory rejected by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Following the ‘throw it against the wall and see what sticks’ approach, the FCC has volunteered a smorgasbord of potential justifications, the sum of which apparently demonstrates that “[b]roadband Internet access services are clearly within the Commission’s jurisdiction.” The lead argument appears to be Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, which requires the FCC to report to Congress and take steps to help create universal broadband availability. We’ll see if the Court agrees that this allows the FCC to create broad rules of the road for the Internet.

The merits of the specific net neutrality proposals notwithstanding, the FCC’s continued attempt to find broad, unfocused basis for jurisdiction is a disconcerting strategy. An ungrounded rationale for regulatory authority is easily abused, opening the door to other, undesirable regulation.

Full Story Here: Genachowski Wins on Net Neutrality, Sort of | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study

A group of British schoolchildren may be the youngest scientists ever to have their work published in a peer-reviewed journal. In a new paper in Biology Letters, 25 8- to 10-year-old children from Blackawton Primary School report that buff-tailed bumblebees can learn to recognize nourishing flowers based on colors and patterns.

“We discovered that bumblebees can use a combination of colour and spatial relationships in deciding which colour of flower to forage from,” the students wrote in the paper’s abstract. “We also discovered that science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before.”

The paper itself is well worth reading. It’s written entirely in the kids’ voices, complete with sound effects (part of the Methods section is subtitled, “‘the puzzle’…duh duh duuuhhh”) and figures drawn by hand in colored pencil.

Full Story Here: 8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study | Wired Science | Wired.com.

We Must Continue to Build Manufacturing Expertise Within U.S. Borders

In recent years U.S. companies have faced many inducements to shift manufacturing overseas, drawn by low production costs and proximity to burgeoning markets, the result being a hollowing out of our industrial jobs base. The United States cannot and should not manufacture products across all industries, especially in fiercely cost-competitive mass production sectors, but our economy and our jobs market will suffer if we do not actively work to retain our prowess as a producer of innovative products at the leading edge of technology.

The United States became a global economic leader by building a diverse economy driven by a continuous innovation business model—one that values both inventing and manufacturing value-added products and sophisticated technologies. Domestic production is a critical source of family-supporting jobs, especially for the 60 percent of the workforce that lacks a four-year college degree. And our manufacturing base is the mechanism through which our world class investments in science, technology, education, and research are translated into the practical skills of innovative production methods, advanced engineering, and profitable businesses.

Full Story Here: Idea of the Day: We Must Continue to Build Manufacturing Expertise Within U.S. Borders.

House GOPers Announce Yet Another Symbolic Act Of Reverence To The Constitution They Hate

The Republican communications machine has kicked into high gear trying to paint the GOP as the party of the Constitution. Last week, the incoming House leadership announced an at-best pointless plan to require every bill to be accompanied by “constitutional authority” statement. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has garnered buckets of press attention for her plan to host classes on the Constitution — including one class taught by Justice Antonin Scalia. Today, the House GOP added to these symbolic acts of reverence for the Constitution by announcing that they will begin the new House session with a ritualized reading of the document itself:

House Republicans will even provide for a reading of the Constitution in the House chamber on the second day of the next Congress. . . .

Taken together, the rules changes appear aimed at addressing complaints that the legislative process isn’t transparent enough, that Congress is rigged to overspend and that lawmakers ignore the Constitution when formulating policy.

There’s only one problem with the GOP’s new image makeover — time and time again, their actions betray their contempt for the Constitution.

Full Story Here: Wonk Room » House GOPers Announce Yet Another Symbolic Act Of Reverence To The Constitution They Hate.

Debunking the dumbest denier myth: ‘Climate Change’ vs. ‘Global Warming’

Some myths pushed by the anti-science crowd are so laughably backwards that repeating them should be grounds for expulsion from homo ’sapiens’ sapiens. And so it is with the doubly wrong claim that progressives are now using the term ‘climate change’ because the planet has supposedly stopped warming.

Of course, it hasn’t actually stopped warming (see NASA reports the 12-month running mean global temperature has reached a new record in 2010 — despite recent minimum of solar irradiance: “We conclude that global temperature continued to rise rapidly in the past decade” and “there has been no reduction in the global warming trend of 0.15-0.20°C/decade that began in the late 1970s”).

But since the deniers make up stuff about the science, why shouldn’t they make up stuff about everything else? The most recent iteration of the dumbest denier myth came from hominid Tim Phillips, president of Americans For Prosperity, the anti-science, anti-EPA, polluter-funded group that is a driving force behind the Tea Party:

Full Story Here: Debunking the dumbest denier myth: ‘Climate Change’ vs. ‘Global Warming’ « Climate Progress.

U.S. Worldview Flawed In Its Approach to Trade

As China pursues a relentless strategy to gain economic superiority on the world stage, U.S. politicians continue to engage in harmful trade policies.

China may have a Communist regime, but it long ago abandoned that flawed economic model for the brand of state capitalism invented by the Japanese, now perfected by the Chinese. Mercantilist behavior (such as export subsidies through currency manipulation), technology theft (through egregious transfer agreements and outright violations of intellectual property laws), and a protected domestic market are tell-tale signs of such policy.

Washington’s weak reaction has been an occasional denunciation of these policies along with failure to pass necessary reforms such as penalizing currency manipulation or the TRADE Act. Instead, planners have predicted China’s behavior will eventually cause runaway inflation that will force change. However, it increasingly appears that by the time that happens, it will be a moot point.

Full Story Here: U.S. Worldview Flawed In Its Approach to Trade | Economy In Crisis.

German Companies Award Jobs for Life

Germany is proof that a nation does not have to participate in a global race to the bottom in regulations and wages to have a successful economy. There are many lessons the U.S. could emulate to help generate jobs and create long-term growth.

BASF SE, has followed in the footsteps of other German companies such as Siemens AG and Porsche AG in granting job security for tens of thousands of workers.

This reverses a trend of companies leaving Germany to avoid paying workers high wages and government regulations. Between 1990 and 2007, BASF cut more than 40 percent of its domestic workforce in order to outsource.

“German companies have progressed on the learning curve, with competition from abroad holding their feet to the fire,” Ralph Wiechers said, a German economist with the VDMA machine makers’ association, according to Bloomberg.

Full Story Here: German Companies Award Jobs for Life | Economy In Crisis.

Senate Should Effectively Ban Chinese Chicken

Inserted in the continuing resolution funding of the government through the fiscal year is a provision that would crack down on Chinese poultry exports unless producers agreed to more stringent oversight of their products.

This week, after passing the Food Safety Modernization Act, the U.S. Senate could take another giant step toward securing the nation’s food supply by effectively banning the import of Chinese poultry products.

Inserted in the continuing resolution funding of the government through the fiscal year is a provision that would crack down on Chinese poultry exports unless producers agreed to more stringent oversight of their products.

The measure would require USDA inspections of producers’ facilities along with increased inspection of slaughter and processing plants.

Full Story Here: Senate Should Effectively Ban Chinese Chicken | Economy In Crisis.

Fading Optimism in “New Normal” America

Illusions Fall, Optimism Fades in “New Normal” America

Optimism is so deeply embedded in the American national psyche that it withstood the Great Depression in the 1930s and a string of recessions since then. But in the era some economists call “the new normal” in America, optimism is fading.

So say public opinion polls that ask Americans how they see the future, theirs and their country’s. One recent survey, by the respected Pew Research Center, found that depression era Americans were more optimistic about economic recovery in the near future than people questioned in a Pew poll this October, when only 35 percent said they expected better economic conditions in a year’s time. In response to a similar question in 1936 and 1937, about half expected general business conditions to improve over the next six months.

The phrase “new normal” was coined by PIMCO, one of the world’s biggest investment funds, and is shorthand for an American future that includes lowered living standards, slow growth and high unemployment. Joblessness now stands at 9.8 percent, up from 9.6 percent in October. Add workers who have given up looking for jobs and people forced to work part time and the rate climbs to 17 percent, a powerful reason for declining optimism.

Full Story Here: Fading Optimism in “New Normal” America | CommonDreams.org.

Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II

On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense Department budget.

The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House.

The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.

The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes, in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations: The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

Full Story Here: Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II « Stop NATO.

New Tax Law Packed With Obscure Business Tax Cuts

New Tax Law Stuffed With Tax Breaks For Windmills, Race Horses, TV Shows; Homeowners Lose Out

The massive new tax bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is filled with all kinds of holiday stocking stuffers for businesses: tax breaks for producing TV shows, grants for putting up windmills, rum subsidies for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There is even a tax break for people who buy race horses.

Millions of homeowners, however, might feel like they got a lump of coal. Homeowners who don’t itemize their deductions will lose a tax break for paying local property taxes.

The business tax breaks are part of sweeping legislation that extends Bush era tax cuts for families at every income level through 2012. Obama signed the $858 billion measure a week ago. It also provides a new payroll tax cut for wage earners and extends jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed.

Full Story Here: New Tax Law Packed With Obscure Business Tax Cuts – CBS News.

People, we’re in deep trouble

Even compared to the manifest swindles and perversions of the past 20 years, we haven’t seen anything like Fox News

Recently, I reread Orwell’s “Looking Back at the Spanish War.” The 1943 essay summarizes what he learned as a volunteer militiaman fighting for Spain’s Socialist government against Franco’s fascist-backed rebels — a bitterly disillusioning experience that inspired his three greatest books: “Homage to Catalonia,” “1984″ and “Animal Farm.”

In it, Orwell describes the corrosive effect of politicized mass media. In Spain, he wrote, “I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed … I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines.’ ”

Full Story Here: People, we’re in deep trouble – Fox News – Salon.com.

OPS: “.. we haven’t seen anything like Fox News”.  Not since Joseph Goebbels anyway. Propaganda works. The question is , why do the democrats still pretend they don’t understand this?

Wealth and the Religious Right

Cultural views regarding the rich have shifted in the nation. This attitude reflects how the nation views taxation, extreme wealth, and economic planning. Observers of the Religious Right have noted the impact such views have had on elections and even church doctrine. Some have suggested that the recent economic set back had some roots in this ideology. A few years ago I had an article published in Christian Ethics Today titled, “Salaries and Santification”. I have updated the article, left out endnotes and published it below.

Using the analogy of baseball, I am remotely familiar with the regional major league baseball team. I note with interest the salary increases and the difference between a weak hitter and a high dollar free agent. Great hitters hit in the range from an average of 290 to 300 or up. They bring many bidders for their services when their contacts expire. The weaker hitters hit around 240 to 250. I realize that hitting for an average is not the only credential used in judging baseball players, however the numbers speak for themselves. Hitters with the larger averages are now able to merit multi year contracts guaranteeing them multiple millions of dollars a year. Below average hitters make usually around $500,000 a year. Thus the difference between the hitters on pay scale is that the “better” hitters make around eight to ten times as much as the weaker hitters.

To put the numbers in perspective, this means a hitter who makes ten times what the weaker player makes is actually getting around 4% to 5% more hits per year than his competition. That is what the numbers say. The same is true of pitchers in which a regional multi million dollar star has only won a few more wins than the lesser paid employee.

Full Story Here: | Wealth and the Religious Right.

Obama to the Corporate Powers: I Feel Your Pain

Jim Hightower:

Guess who’s whining the loudest these days, wailing that they’re getting a raw deal from Barack Obama.

Not the unemployed and barely employed – even though the White House has blithely ignored their critical need for a national jobs program. Not the poor, even though their ranks are swelling as millions of Americans fall out of the middle class.

No, no, the most insistent demand for attention is coming from way above the poor and the middle class. Believe it or not, it’s the CEOs of Americas biggest corporations and the top bankers of Wall Street who’re stamping their little Gucci-clad feet, bawling that they should be getting more love and support from the president.

Full Story Here: Jim Hightower | Obama to the Corporate Powers: I Feel Your Pain.

NY, AK Election Contests Demonstrate, Again, Why Paper Ballots Need to Actually Be Counted

Having paper ballots is one thing. Seeing them actually be counted, unfortunately, continues to be quite another matter.

For those of you who may not understand why it’s not enough to merely have hand-marked paper ballots that are tallied only by oft-failed, easily-manipulated computers — even if those paper ballots could be counted by human beings “in the event there are questions about the results”, as supporters of such systems like to say — need look no further than the extraordinary finding on Monday from New York’s highest court, its Court of Appeals.

And, for that matter, what is likely to happen in Alaska very soon, where Republican Joe Miller continues to wait for a similar decision from that state’s Supreme Court in his fight for a hand-count of all paper ballots in his still-uncertified U.S. Senate race against Republican write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams…

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : NY, AK Election Contests Demonstrate, Again, Why Paper Ballots Need to Actually Be Counted.

Moody’s bungled ratings on community bank bonds, too

Billions of dollars in top-rated bonds backed by community banks have gone bust, debunking the defense offered by credit-rating agencies that wildly inaccurate ratings were limited to risky mortgage bonds that imploded and then triggered the U.S. financial crisis.

Government regulators and lawyers across the country are examining how credit-rating agencies came to bless as “investment grade” the now-toxic bonds made up of special securities issued by community bank holding companies.

During the go-go years preceding the December 2007 start of the worst modern recession, more than $50 billion of these special securities were floated by community banks and pooled into complex instruments called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs.

Full Story Here: Moody’s bungled ratings on community bank bonds, too | McClatchy.

OPS: Bungled? Or, something farther south?

SEC Describes Possible Criminal Activity in Unprosecuted Hedge Fund Case

Amid Crackdown on Wall Street, Government Enforcement Efforts Still Questioned

The Obama administration has stated it will aggressively go after Wall Street criminals, but is the government letting two defendants off easy?

As part of a big crackdown on Wall Street fraud, Attorney General Eric Holder recently revealed an “investigation is ongoing” that is “very serious,” believed to involve hedge funds and insider trading. He also has announced “Operation Broken Trust,” a Department of Justice-led task force targeting hundreds of illicit investment schemes. One of Holder’s wingmen is Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara has threatened to file criminal charges including perjury against those who mislead federal investigators looking into stock fraud.

But what neither Holder nor Bharara have highlighted is a major case involving Pequot Capital Management, once the world’s largest hedge fund, and alleged insider trading in shares of Microsoft. The target of a DOJ-Securities and Exchange Commission investigation stretching back to 2005, the Pequot case is only now wrapping up. Last month, the SEC held an administrative proceeding in New York where government lawyers detailed new and serious accusations of what appears to be criminal wrongdoing, yet experts say there is little indication that DOJ intends to follow up with a criminal prosecution.

Full Story Here: SEC Describes Possible Criminal Activity in Unprosecuted Hedge Fund Case – The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog.

New Zealand military declassifies UFO files

Video:

Files just released by New Zealand’s air force have revealed dozens of suspected UFO (unidentified flying object) sightings.

They have been declassified under the country’s Freedom of Information Act, and include some fairly outlandish accounts by so-called eyewitnesses.

EPA Announces Landmark Greenhouse Gas Regulations Plan For Nation’s Biggest Polluters

The Obama administration announced landmark plans Thursday to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Unites States. A press release from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that new standards granted under the Clean Air Act will be implemented in 2012. The EPA also announced that it is taking unprecedented action to issue air permits to industries in Texas, due to the state’s non-compliance with new regulations that are set to begin on January 2.

The EPA’s new plan will establish standards specifically for fossil fuel power plants and petroleum refineries, both of which combine to represent roughly 40 percent of GHG pollution in the United States.

From the EPA’s press release:

Full Story Here: EPA Announces Landmark Greenhouse Gas Regulations Plan For Nation’s Biggest Polluters.

Solar-Powered Animal, Oriental Hornet, Discovered By Tel-Aviv Scientists

Apparently even insects are jumping on the solar power bandwagon. A recent breakthrough discovery conducted at Tel-Aviv University has found that the Oriental hornet can turn light into electricity.

The study, reported on in the journal Naturwissenschaften, began when scientists observed that unlike other wasps, the Oriental hornet is most active in the middle of the day. Further investigation revealed that UVB radiation affects the hornet’s activity level.

It turns out that an Oriental hornet’s shell can trap sunlight, while the pigment xanthopterin converts it to energy. This explains why the hornet is most active mid-day.

Full Story Here: Solar-Powered Animal, Oriental Hornet, Discovered By Tel-Aviv Scientists.

U.S. Allowed American Companies To Do Business With Blacklisted Nations

The Treasury Department has granted nearly 10,000 special licenses to American companies over the past decade so they could sell some types of products in Iran and other countries the U.S. considers terrorist sponsors, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Companies such as Kraft Food and Pepsi and some of the largest U.S. banks benefited, the newspaper said. Most licenses were granted under a law allowing trade in humanitarian goods, even if that ended up including products as diverse as cigarettes and chewing gum.

The story posted on the Times’ website implies no illegal activity by administration officials or company personnel. Rather, it suggests the various deals for goods ranging from Louisiana hot sauce to body-building supplements undermine America’s moral and diplomatic authority as the leading purveyor of tough sanctions on Iran, North Korea and other nations.

Full Story Here: U.S. Allowed American Companies To Do Business With Blacklisted Nations.

OPS: Can’t let Treason and Trading with the Enemy get in the way of a profit

Beth Israel Deaconess admits mishandling three spine operations

Surgeons at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center operated on the wrong location on three patients who underwent spine surgery since September, despite taking recommended steps to prevent such errors, prompting federal and state health inspectors to cite the hospital for problems in its surgical service.

In all three cases, the surgeons apparently miscounted the patient’s vertebrae and operated on a vertebra directly above or below the diseased segment, said Dr. Kenneth Sands, senior vice president of health care quality at the Boston hospital.

He declined to identify the surgeons — one of whom operated on two of the patients — but he said both are experienced and had followed standard procedures in the operating room, such as taking a “time out’’ to verify the type and location of the surgery.

Full Story Here: Beth Israel Deaconess admits mishandling three spine operations – The Boston Globe.

Gap between rich and middle class grows

The gap between the rich and the middle class is larger than it has ever been due to the bursting of the housing bubble.

The richest 1% of U.S. households had a net worth 225 times greater than that of the average American household in 2009, according to analysis conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. That’s up from the previous record of 190 times greater, which was set in 2004.

The widening gap came even as wealthy households’ average net worth tumbled 27% — to about $14 million — between 2007 to 2009. That’s the first time that they suffered a decline since the three-year period of 1992 to 1995.

Meanwhile, the average family’s net worth plunged 41% — to just $62,200 — from 2007 to 2009, according to EPI’s calculations.

Full Story Here: Gap between rich and middle class grows – Dec. 23, 2010.

BP partners ‘manipulating’ oil spill evidence, chemical board says

The federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents has accused two BP partners of “hands-on manipulation” of evidence in the Gulf oil spill.

The US Chemical Safety Board has asked for a halt to testing of the blowout preventer involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, saying that employees of Cameron International and Transocean have been permitted “hands-on manipulation” of the device.

Full Story Here: BP partners ‘manipulating’ oil spill evidence, chemical board says | Raw Story.

Assange: ‘High chance’ I’d be killed ‘Jack Ruby-style’ in US prison

WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange said in an interview published Thursday there was a “high chance” he would be killed in a US jail if he were to be extradited from Britain on espionage charges.

The Australian is on bail in Britain fighting a bid by Sweden to extradite him over sex assault claims, but Washington is believed to be considering how to indict him over the leaking of thousands of US diplomatic cables.

Assange told The Guardian it would be “politically impossible” for Britain to send him across the Atlantic, adding that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron would want to show it had not been “co-opted” by Washington.

Full Story Here: Assange: ‘High chance’ I’d be killed ‘Jack Ruby-style’ in US prison | Raw Story.

Device uses sunlight to make liquid fuel

Scientists from the US and Switzerland have created a prototype machine that harnesses the sun’s energy to make liquid fuels from water.

“We have a big energy problem and we have to think big,” Prof Sossina Haile, who led the study, told The Guardian.

The solar device uses sunlight and cerium oxide to break down water or carbon dioxide into hydrogen or carbon monoxide.

Cerium oxide, an oxide of the rare earth metal cerium, is almost as abundant as copper and when heated the chemical strips oxygen molecules from water and carbon dioxide.

Full Story Here: Device uses sunlight to make liquid fuel | Raw Story.

As President Obama ‘Wrestles’ With The Issue, Vice President Biden Says Gay Marriage Is Inevitable

Christmas came early for gay rights advocates when Congress repealed the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy last week, and President Obama signed it into law on Wednesday. The administration’s comments since the bill-signing, however, are providing even more hopeful signs that full equality will continue to make progress in the United States.

In a press conference on Wednesday, President Obama sounded a hopeful tone on LGBT rights. Though he has maintained that he favors civil unions but opposes same-sex marriage, Obama told reporters that his views on the subject “are constantly evolving” and it is an issue he will “continue to wrestle with going forward.” In an interview with The Advocate, Obama said he “strongly supports” repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, which permits states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state. He also called on Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination against employees due to their sexual orientation.

Now, Vice President Biden is moving the administration’s stance even further. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos this morning, Biden declared that gay marriage is inevitable in the United States:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » As President Obama ‘Wrestles’ With The Issue, Vice President Biden Says Gay Marriage Is Inevitable.

The Attack on American Education

Robert Reich:

Over the long term, the only way we’re going to raise wages, grow the economy, and improve American competitiveness is by investing in our people — especially their educations.

You’ve probably seen the reports. American students rank low on international standards of educational performance. Too many of ours schools are failing. Too few young people who are qualified for college or post-secondary education have the opportunity.

I’m not one of those who thinks the only way to fix what’s wrong with American education is to throw more money at it. We also need to do it much better. Teacher performance has to be squarely on the table. We should experiment with vouchers whose worth is inversely related to family income. Universities have to tame their budgets, especially for student amenities that have nothing to do with education.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Attack on American Education).

Julian Assange Rape Case: Sweden WITHDRAWS Arrest Warrant

Swedish authorities revoked a short-lived arrest warrant for the founder of WikiLeaks on Saturday, saying a rape accusation against him lacked substance.

Julian Assange, who was believed to be in Sweden, remained under suspicion of a lesser crime of molestation in a separate case, prosecutors said.

The nomadic 39-year-old Australian dismissed the allegations in a statement on WikiLeaks’ Twitter page, saying “the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing.”

Full Story Here: Julian Assange Rape Case: Sweden WITHDRAWS Arrest Warrant.

Tennessee Homeland Security Agency Lists the ACLU on its ‘Terrorist Events’ Map

One of the most troubling aspects of the “war on terror” has been the Government’s easy conflation of terrorism and Constitutionally-protected dissent.

One of the most troubling aspects of the “war on terror” has been the Government’s easy conflation of terrorism and Constitutionally-protected dissent.

According to reporter Jeff Woods, writing in the Nashville City Paper, an example of that dynamic appeared in Tennessee. After a local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to local schools reminding them not to celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, a state anti-terrorism agency placed the Tennessee ACLU on a map of “terrorism events and other suspicious activity.”

The ACLU expressed outrage Tuesday over its appearance on the Tennessee Fusion Center’s map, saying it “raises the specter that the government is once again tracking innocent Americans.”

Full Story Here: Tennessee Homeland Security Agency Lists the ACLU on its ‘Terrorist Events’ Map | AlterNet.

Jon Stewart Did What Pundits and Reporters Should Have Done

There’s lots of media chatter about Comedy Central host Jon Stewart in the wake of yesterday’s Senate vote to pass the 9/11 first responders bill. The chatter surrounds what appears to be the central media role Stewart played in shining a spotlight on how Republicans were blocking the legislation and, just as importantly, how the Beltway press was, inexcusably, ignoring the unfolding story.

Indeed, as Media Matters first noted, the day after the initial vote was held two weeks ago in which filibustering Republicans unanimously voted to not let the first responder bill proceed, none of the network news telecasts that night reported on the story. None. And in the 48 hours that followed, the cable news channels didn’t have much to say either, nor did many print or online pundits. The bill to aid Sept. 11 heroes had been dealt a rather stunning blow in the Senate, and most mainstream media players didn’t care, to the point where the story wasn’t even covered.

But yes, on the night of the vote, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart covered the vote. And Stewart, in his signature way, highlighted the stunning hypocrisy in play.

Full Story Here: Eric Boehlert: Jon Stewart Did What Pundits and Reporters Should Have Done.

The Humbug Express

Paul Krugman:

Hey, has anyone noticed that “A Christmas Carol” is a dangerous leftist tract?

I mean, consider the scene, early in the book, where Ebenezer Scrooge rightly refuses to contribute to a poverty relief fund. “I’m opposed to giving people money for doing nothing,” he declares. Oh, wait. That wasn’t Scrooge. That was Newt Gingrich — last week. What Scrooge actually says is, “Are there no prisons?” But it’s pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, instead of praising Scrooge for his principled stand against the welfare state, Charles Dickens makes him out to be some kind of bad guy. How leftist is that?

As you can see, the fundamental issues of public policy haven’t changed since Victorian times. Still, some things are different. In particular, the production of humbug — which was still a somewhat amateurish craft when Dickens wrote — has now become a systematic, even industrial, process.

Let me walk you through a case in point, one that I’ve been following lately.

Full Story Here: The Humbug Express – NYTimes.com.

FCC poised to approve Comcast takeover of NBC-Universal after new conditions

The head of the Federal Communications Commission proposed regulatory conditions Thursday to ensure that cable giant Comcast Corp. cannot stifle video competition once it takes control of NBC Universal.

The conditions are intended to guarantee that satellite companies, phone companies and other traditional subscription television services can still get access to marquee NBC programming once the transaction closes. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also wants to ensure that new Internet video distributors can get the programming they need to grow and compete.

FCC officials, however, wouldn’t disclose the specific conditions Thursday as fellow commissioners consider whether to back Genachowski’s proposal. The chairman needs the support of at least two of them to get the plan passed. He is likely to modify parts of his proposal to win the backing he needs.

Full Story Here: FCC poised to approve Comcast takeover of NBC-Universal after new conditions | Raw Story.

Did Giuliani And Co. Provide ‘Material Support’ To Terrorist Group?

The Washington Post reports that four prominent Republicans — former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, former Bush administration homeland security adviser Fran Townsend, former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey — spoke before “a forum of cheering Iranian exiles” in Paris to demand that President Obama “take the controversial Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) opposition group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran”:

“Appeasement of dictators leads to war, destruction and the loss of human lives,” Giuliani declared. “For your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just really a disgrace.”

The four GOP figures appeared at a rally organized by the French Committee for a Democratic Iran, a pressure group formed to support MEK.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Did Giuliani And Co. Provide ‘Material Support’ To Terrorist Group?.

111th Congress Was Most Productive Session Since ‘At Least’ The 1960s

Public approval of Congress has never been worse: this week, Gallup tracked the highest disapproval rating it has ever recorded for the legislative branch, with 83 percent disapproving and only 13 percent approving of the job being done by lawmakers. Conservatives like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) have blasted this Congress as “a disaster,” while some liberal groups complained through much of this term that “[h]opes for change are turning to disappointment as Congress fails to meet goals for a progressive agenda.”

There is no debate, however, that the 111th Congress passed a historic volume of substantial legislation, whatever one might think about the merits of these achievements. Historian Alan Brinkley told Bloomberg yesterday that “[t]his is probably the most productive session of Congress since at least the ’60s,” for an article outlining the historic achievements of this session:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » 111th Congress Was Most Productive Session Since ‘At Least’ The 1960s.

Is Barack Obama the Problem?

By Robert Parry

Despite some recent victories like repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” many on the American Left are feeling a cumulative disgust toward President Barack Obama, not just for his generally timid policy choices but – even more so – for his failure to articulate and fight for progressive values.

After eight years of getting bullied by President George W. Bush – and even longer by Fox News, talk radio and congressional Republicans – many progressives, including many young voters, wanted a passionate advocate in the mold of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, himself a member of the American elite who treated his class with a knowing disdain. They got instead a silver-tongued conciliator who strives for the elite’s blessings.

So, even as Obama ticks off his legislative accomplishments – from helping women get a fair wage in his administration’s early days to his Wednesday signing of a law repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules for gays in the U.S. military – the President is not likely to gain much traction with his liberal “base” because he has failed to be what many of them hoped he would be: a battler.

Full Story Here: Is Barack Obama the Problem?.

Pat Robertson Wants To Legalize Pot

Pat Robertson came out in favor of marijuana legalization on the 12/22/2010 episode of The 700 Club